Two more international adoption – adoptive parent books (some are memoirs, others informed by their adoption experience)
Add Forever Lily: An Unexpected Mother’s Journey to Adoption in China by Beth Nonte Russel and China Ghosts: My Daughter’s Journey to America, My Journey to Fatherhood by Jeff Gammage to the list of:
- A Nest for Our Russian Doll by Verda Koene Hanrahan
- An Empty Lap: One Couple’s Journey to Parenthood by Jill Smolowe
- Bringing our Angel Home by Tracy Pillows
- China Girl: One Man’s Adoption Story by David Demers
- Daughter from Afar: A Family’s International Adoption Story by Sarah L. Woodward
- Finding Katherine: A Spiritual Journey to Vietnam and Motherhood by Ellen Fitzenrider
- From China with Love: A Long Road to Motherhood by Emily
- Growing Girls: The Mother of all Adventures by Jeanne Marie Laskas
- Hello Aibek! A Journey of International Adoption by Kevin Quirk
- Hola! An Adoption Adventure by Shaina Maidel
- Love in the Driest Season: by Neely Tucker
- Meeting Sophie: A Memoir of Adoption by Nancy McCabe
- Miracles for Marlee by Shannon G. Turner
- One Hundred Siberian Postcards by Richard Wirick
- Pushing Up the Sky by Terra Trevor
- The Lost Daughters of China by Karin Evans
- There is No Me Without You: One Woman’s Odyssey to Rescue Africa’s Children by Melissa Fay Greene
- The Russian Word for Snow: A True Story of Adoption by Janis Cooke Newman
- The Waiting Child: How the faith and love of one child saved another by Cindy Champnella
- Two Little Girls: A Memoir of Adoption by Theresa Reid
- Wanting a Daughter, Needing a Son: Abandonment, Adoption and Orphanage Care in China by Kay Ann Johnson
- Wuhu Diary: On Taking My Adoptive Daughter Back to Her Hometown in China by Emily Praeger
Harlow's Monkey 
wanting a daughter, needing a son never impressed me as a memoir. of the rest I’ve only heard of one other title…..i wonder if at least some of these titles are self-pub
Pushing up the Sky
As a 19-year old unmarried college student Terra Trevor found herself pregnant. A social worker counseled her it would be easier to find parents for her baby were she not Native American. The memoir unfolds from the birth and adoption of her three children, and includes the story of adopting ten year-old from Korea more than 20 years ago. Amid the ups and downs of the tale, Trevor tells the story of how shortly after adopting her daughter, discovering that her son had a brain tumor, and of loving her fifteen year-old son through a losing battle with cancer, and then finding her way through grief to a life that is whole again, and reuniting with her adult daugher.
Written from the perspective of a woman who straddles a complex ethnic and racial heritage, the story is suffused with issues of race, culture, identity loss and gain. Sad, but triumphant, the book deserves a wide readership for its great story-telling and lyrical use of language.
Oh and let me add that I think “Lost Daughters of China” and “Wanting a Daughter, Needing a Son” are essential reading for anyone even considering adopting a child from China.
You have the title wrong of Melissa Fay Green’s book. The proper title There Is No Me Without You: One Woman’s Odyssey to Rescue Africa’s Children (rather than Rescue Children from Africa–a huge difference semantically!).
Greene is an established journalist and author of several solid books. This book is excellent. It’s not so much about her experiences as a mother through adoption, but the story of an Ethiopian woman who takes in Ethiopian children who are HIV+. HIV carries a huge stigma in Ethiopia, and often children who are HIV+ are not welcome even in their relatives’ homes (and often are orphaned and die themselves eventually because of limited ARV drugs).
So this book is more about one woman’s efforts to save children who would otherwise die from AIDS. Sometimes those kids are adopted to families outside Ethiopia (in one part of the book, an Ethiopian says of older kids and kids with HIV, “The Americans will adopt them. No one else will, but the Americans will.” Or something like that.)
This book also talks about a place called AHOPE for Children, which is providing care (including ARV drugs) for HIV+ children in Addis, including helping them transition to adulthood. I’ve visited the facility, which is an amazing place.
Okay, would everyone be happier if instead of memoir I titled this post “Adoptive parent books”?
It is my opinion from the books I’ve read (and I haven’t read them all) that even the ones that are more academic are still informed a great deal from the writer’s personal experience.
I’d have to look, but I remember the info in “wanting a daughter, needing a son” being backed up with refs. I remember factual data. Has anyone else here read the book? It’s amazingly informative.
Now, of course, some people may choose not to believe what is written in this book about the history of China and about Chinese culture. But, no where did I get the sense that the author was pulling figures and ideas out of the sky. This book is essential to understanding why female children are abandoned in China and subsequently end up needing homes.
I think the collection here is a mishmash different styles. They aren’t all “here’s my story as I adopted abroad” type books.